"Free the Workers: Jail the Bankers" was the most common slogan on the placards building workers held outside the Four Courts yesterday. The protest was the largest so far held by the group calling itself Building Workers Against the Black Economy (BWABE).
It was established at the end of 1997 to fight the growth of subcontracting in the construction industry. It draws members from most of the industry's unions but bricklayers form the core.
The group sprang up after the Supreme Court upheld an objection from C & G Crampton that the bricklayers' union, the Building and Allied Trades Union (BATU), had not conducted a strike ballot properly, prior to a strike over subcontracting at a site in Dublin City University.
The union balloted its members twice, in an effort to meet the requirements laid down in the 1990 Industrial Relations Act. The ballot involved just 10 members of BATU and the action cost the union over £40,000. After that there was a strong belief among members that the elaborate machinery required by the courts would never work in the building trade. They began to look for an alternative strategy.
Far from abandoning industrial action, the bricklayers engaged in a series of unofficial mass pickets at various Crampton sites around Dublin. The company obtained injunctions, but it never sought the committal of the picketers. Ultimately, it had to come to a negotiated settlement on the use of direct labour with BATU.
The BWABE strategy that unofficial action could succeed, if workers were determined enough, seemed to work. Several similar disputes seemed to bear out that approach. Meanwhile, BATU sought to use the law itself to restrict subcontracting in the construction industry.
Last June the union sought a judicial review of the new construction industry agreement on subcontracting, even though it had been accepted by the employers' body, the Construction Industry Federation, and by the other eight unions in the industry. That case is still before the courts.
Throughout the summer unofficial disputes over subcontracting simmered on various sites, including the Capel Developments scheme at the old British embassy on the Merrion Road. The company is owned by Mr John O'Connor, who also has a development on the Conyngham Road in Dublin.
Both sites are residential developments and, like many housing and apartment block developers, Mr O'Connor tends to adopt a more robust attitude towards industrial relations than some large construction companies. Last August, when some of the workers on site objected to the use of a subcontractor, Edward Moran Ltd, it was decided to let them go. Ironically, the subcontractor, Mr Moran, was himself a member of BATU.
When workers on the Merrion Road site took unofficial action Capel Developments faced serious financial loss on the £9.1 million scheme. While Mr O'Connor refused yesterday to go into the details of the dispute, he denied allegations by BWABE that there are black economy practices at the site. Significantly, the chairman of the ICTU construction industry committee, Mr Tommy White, agreed with Mr O'Connor.
BWABE members claim there was clear victimisation of workers who objected to working with subcontractors on site and it was their dismissal that led to unofficial pickets at the site, and at Mr O'Connor's Conyngham Road development in September. BATU was not involved, however and, on October 8th, the union issued an instruction to members not to take part in the unofficial pickets.
BATU has successfully resisted attempts by Capel Developments to implicate it in the unofficial dispute. Indeed, one of the workers committed to prison on Wednesday, Mr William Rogers, is a labourer, and as such not even a member of BATU.
Nevertheless, the bulk of the 250 building workers who gathered at the Four Courts yesterday morning in solidarity with Mr Rogers and his colleague, Mr David McMahon, were BATU members. One of them, Mr Bill O'Brien, was the chairman of BATU's Dublin regional committee. Speaking in a personal capacity, he said: "Direct labour versus subcontracting is the basic issue.
"There is no regulation in the industry and the current agreement is ineffective. Subcontracting lets the big employer pass the buck down to the smaller employer."
He claimed that, by forcing bricklayers to subcontract, employers saved 12 per cent on payroll costs because there was no PRSI deduction, they did not have to contribute to the industry pension scheme and they saved up to £5,000 a year in holiday pay for each worker concerned.
The director-general of the CIF, Mr Liam Kelleher, agrees that the right of employers to use subcontractors is the basic issue. But while he accepts that some companies might save money by having workers categorised as self-employed, he adds that labour shortages mean workers themselves often dictate whether they worked directly for a company, or on a subcontract basis.